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A government that’s 50% female wouldn’t rule us any better

There’s no need for our representatives to be just like us

Carol Sarler

July 16 2014, 1:01am, The Times

Shuffle, promote, demote or replace. Whatever it takes, every leading political party agrees: to pre-empt accusations of “discrimination”, more women must be seen to sit on seats of power. That is not, however, the full agenda of the noisier proponents (think of Harriet Harman), which is not to have more women in office, but to have fully 50 per cent of seats filled by women. Why?

Because, the argument goes, 50 per cent of the population is female, so that ratio should be matched in political muscle. Thus they conflate the reasonable view that discrimination is bad with the wholly questionable view that government would do better if it were an exact mirror of the governed; in other words, nobody can properly represent those of…